The ramblings of the Global Village Idiot.

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want….

There are few stories that capture my attention more than those involving the mirepoix of Technology stories, Robots, Japan and velociraptor. You can imagine my delight when we saw the story of Japanese robots being fired for not being human enough. It seems that a hotel in Japan had fired most of its human workers, replacing them with robots only to find that the robots were not human enough to replace the human workers that they had replaced. The robot maids and bellhop lacked a human touch and often malfunctioned though it does seem like the velociraptor concierges did seem to be a departure from this plan. The entire situation though brings up the question, what is it that we really want from these robotic aids? This confusion seems inherent in the situation in this hotel, where the concierges were robots made up to look like the aforementioned velociraptors. Do we really want cheaper humans as Wal-Mart seems to think, replacing the people who used to mop the floors with robots, or do we want comical C3PO’s that speak in a charming British accent and add some comic relief to our day-to-day routine? And what about race, do we want our robots all to be white and male or should they be modeled after the Kardashians- (or would that be redundant) in a generic idea of western beauty or would we accept a rainbow of robots in various colours and shapes? In short, are we creating something in the image of a self like us or are we striving toward a future populated by a self-better than who we are?